American Dreams
by Miri1984
Summary: Series of drabbles from the life of Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America. Title art by Cave Fatuam.
1. Dreams

There is the odd night, here and there, where he dreams of nothing at all.

Some nights he dreams of the feel of a fist hitting a fragile body - the body he used to have before the needles and the vita rays, the body that he had trouble remembering was no longer his. He flinches, sometimes, when people throw a blow, because he remembers that once upon a time the fist would connect and there would be a crunch where now there was usually just a thud - if the fist is even fast enough to connect.

Those nights are ok. He usually wakes up fine. Rested.

Other nights he's back in the room with Erskine and Stark and the other scientists, in the metal tube, feeling the press of needles into his arms and the heat of rays through his body. That peculiar sense that everything was changing through the pain, the feeling of being too full and _not full enough. _

Those aren't too bad.

He dreams of bullets and guns and tanks and hydra weapons. Of explosions and comrades falling as they fight the good fight, but those dreams are just bad, he wakes from them, sweating, but he can roll over and fall asleep again because it was war and that was to be expected and really, when it got down to it, he'd been doing what he was meant to do then. It may not have been _good _but it had been _right _and he'd belonged with those men and women and he'd been _doing his bit._

Then there are the nights when he dreams of the cold. Not the cold of the crash — that cold he can't remember. There is a wall of white in his memory, coming up at him through the windshield of the Valkyrie, and his therapists say that's to be expected, it's just too big a thing for him to contemplate, all that time in the ice, all those years lost. No. The cold he dreams of is the air rushing past him as he leans out of the train and watches Bucky fall. Sweat from the fight cooling on his skin, the strange feeling of wind in his hair and the cold, cold pit of dread in his stomach, the knowledge that this was real, this couldn't be fixed with a needle or a punch or some reassuring, meaningless words.

That was the cold that would have him waking, gasping for breath and springing from the bed to pace the room and sometimes, sometimes he would be lucky enough to calm the heart rate and get back to sleep because after all…

…they had their time. And even if he hadn't fallen, Bucky would still, now, be dead.

But there was a pattern on those nights when he woke up cold, and even if he could get back to sleep there was a chance he'd dream then of lips and a smile and a kiss that was _supposed _to be one of many but turned out just being…

…one.

Those are the nights he goes to the training room. Those are the nights he knows he's not going to get any more sleep and when he's honest with himself, _he always tries to be honest with himself, _he prefers those nights because for a few moments after he wakes up — when he can remember them _that clearly,_ it almost feels as though they're still alive


	2. Getting It

It's hard, understanding people these days. Steve grew up with a certain set of rules, rules that have changed more than people might think. You grew up and you made friends through experience and common interest and you stuck by them if they stuck by you and it was… well it was simple.

Or maybe his brain was addled from all those years in the ice.

Most of the others are ok with him… not getting it. Bruce… well Bruce doesn't seem to get a lot himself, every little thing he says is like treading on glass and Steve figures there are just some things that make you second guess yourself every step of the way and that's ok, that's _fine _he can totally understand that and it means they share a comforting… thing… that while isn't exactly friendship (Steve would call it friendship, but Bruce would be afraid that if he called it that something bad would happen to it) at least follows the forms for it.

Clint reminds him of Bucky — he has that easy charm that Bucky always had — buckets more of it than Steve ever had even after the Serum (thanks Erskine, he didn't say that it would increase the _awkward) _and just a general acceptance of all things weird that Steve thinks is probably a SHIELD trait. Or maybe it's just a Clint thing. In any case they get along fine, even if Steve has no idea what the relationship between him and Natasha is all about and that leads him to Tasha who…

…surprisingly is the easiest to get. It took him a long time and a hotdog conversation to realise why and when he realises that they are _contemporaries _the implications nearly floor him. She had time to adjust to change and Steve didn't, but she _gets him _and that makes it far easier to get her. Sometimes they watch old movies together and laugh and she's pretty much the only one Steve really relaxes around because if he slips or flinches at something that is just…. _wrong _she pats his arm and tells him not to worry and he'd never _ever _tell him that sometimes she reminds him of his mom, because… well. She's still younger than him.

He thinks she probably had it tougher than he did — he tries sometimes, to imagine what it would have been like if Bucky had survived, without the serum, and just gotten older while Steve… _didn't. _The thought makes him shudder and he squashes it whenever it comes out because if he thinks of Bucky surviving he's too close to Peggy doing the same and…

Thor is Thor and so darn comfortable with people not getting him that it doesn't matter and becomes a bit of a game, really, a game that Clint and Tony like to play — who will get more confused, Thor or Steve? It's usually Steve, though, because Thor has this… acceptance thing going, which Steve guesses is from coming from a place where elves and dwarves _actually exist _and his nephew is a horse and _that's something that Steve will never ever get._

He's quite happy about that.

And that leaves Tony.

He doesn't get Tony.

He doesn't get Tony _at all._

It's not just about the fight they have in the carrier that first day. It's not just because he looks like Howard and in some lights and situations, sounds like him too and Steve can squint and think he's back in the requisitions hall and Peggy will walk around the corner and fire a weapon at him. He said that once, to Tony, "You remind me of Howard…" and that was another thing he didn't get until Pepper gently took him aside and explained to him, that the Howard Steve knew is not the same one Tony knew, or the face that Howard showed his son was very different to the one he showed Steve and Steve _almost _gets that — his dad wasn't the centerfold in world's best parents either — but not quite because the way Tony's face just goes… completely blank and then he walks away…is not something he's used to.

It's not just because everything Tony says is a joke — it's definitely not that because after the first few weeks it finally dawns on Steve that everything he says _isn't _a joke, that most of the time Tony actually _means _it, and that for some reason the ability to censor his thoughts before they reach his mouth just was one that Tony _wasn't born with._

Tony asks questions. He wants to know how much better things are than they were and Steve has to gently remind him every now and then that when Steve was a kid he was _poor _in _Brooklyn _and the kinds of things Tony wants to know about were things that may have existed for some kids in the 1930s but Steve definitely wasn't one of them. The most high tech thing Steve had ever handled was the Valkyrie and that… hadn't gone very well. He'd never even touched one of the Hydra weapons, even though Bucky had kind of liked them. They felt wrong in his hands.

These days he doesn't even like the look of guns. Even though he'd carried his service revolver during the war he hasn't touched one by choice since he woke up and won't if he gets the chance. Tony doesn't get that Steve isn't into weapons, but then the list of things Tony doesn't get about Steve is probably longer than the things Steve doesn't get about Tony.

That said, sometimes they fall into an easy routine. Tony's good at what he does. When he's in the suit he even takes orders, possibly because he can't see anything wrong with the orders Cap gives, possibly because he likes showing off. They work together, and it frustrates Steve that they can seamlessly defend the innocent against aliens or hydra or robots and not…

…get each other.

It changes a bit on his birthday. Tony's done something with the drinks, something that's possibly deadly and almost certainly illegal. It takes Tony a long time to convince him to try one, and for the first time in more than seventy years Steve can feel himself get pleasantly buzzed. They're having a barbecue on the roof of the Tower — best view for the fireworks. Clint nudges him and grins, saying how it's not fair that _some _people get fireworks on their birthdays and Steve shrugs, it's not like he's ever thought of them as _his._

It's halfway through the display that a few rockets shoot up from behind them and he feels a hand on his arm turn him around gently. "Happy Birthday Captain America" is spelled out across the sky in blue and red and white and Tony has a smug look on his face that is just the prelude to him taking credit.

"Thanks, Tony," Steve says. "You didn't have to do that."

"Nonsense," Tony says. "You're a national icon. People need to remember that, especially now."

It's a big gesture, and Steve hasn't had a lot of big gestures that are just _for him. _But this one isn't just for him, it's for Captain America and everything that _he _represents and if he hadn't been slightly buzzed he probably would have stopped the words that fall out of his mouth next.

"I'm not like you, you know, Tony."

"No one is."

"I mean… Captain America. He's… not me. Not the way you're Iron Man any way."

Tony frowns and turns to him. "Is this your way of saying my birthday present sucked?"

"No. No! It's… lovely, thank you. It's just… sometimes I think… " Steve shakes his head and has another drink, because _that's _a good idea. Perhaps he _is _like Tony.

Tony's crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow and Steve knows it'll be up to him to dig himself out of this particular hole. He pats his chest. "What they did to me… it was never _me, _you know? They picked me, sure, but most of the time I still feel like the scrawny kid getting beat up in the alley."

Tony smiles, then looks up at him. "I think we all do sometimes, Cap," he says.

"Even you?"

Tony's smile widens. _"Especially _me. Why do you think I encase myself in metal and shoot at things in my spare time?"

Steve glances at him and in the light from the remaining fireworks, decides that he doesn't actually look that much like Howard after all.

"Yeah, I think I can get that," he says


	3. Beginning

He never did work out when not to start things.

He figured he just wasn't that good at picking the right time. What was a beginning, for him any way? There were so many different layers of Steve Rogers that he didn't know any more.

There was the day he was born, of course. A natural beginning, regular folks who had regular struggles having a regular kid who would turn out to be not-so-regular — in a lot of ways _before _he even got targeted for Erskine's formula, but it was a common enough beginning to many, many stories. Not the only child born poor in Brooklyn on the fourth of July, not the only boy, not the only Steven…

He was _their _only son, though, and he was special because of that and for a while it was even enough.

But he thinks the real beginning, the one that made him who he is now… _that_ was the first time he'd ever taken a punch. Seven years old and defending _something — _he can't even remember what any more, whether it was his mother or his father or a friend or whether the other person had just, as seemed to happen a lot in later years, just taken offense at his _face. _There'd been that burst of pain and that flash of rage and it went on for longer than he wanted it too (he didn't say "I can do this all day" because then, he really didn't _want _to — that act of defiance, that phrase… he didn't start saying that until he was older) but he stayed on his feet, somehow, until someone stopped them, and his mother wiped his nose and tutted and told him he needed to be more careful because he wasn't as big as the other boys and if something happened to him she didn't know what she would do… and his fumbling, seven year old words, trying to explain why it was the _right thing to do_ but she hadn't understood and he knew now, that she was right, even though, and this was the complicated thing, _he was too._

Perhaps the world saw him as beginning in the lab with Erskine and Stark and that was _a _beginning but not _the _beginning because if he'd not been that seven year old, with a bloody nose and a worried mother, they would never have picked him and Captain America might just have been some thug who didn't understand that if you _had _power it didn't necessarily mean you should _use it._


	4. Accusation

"_Of the people here who is a: wearing a spangly outfit and b: not of use?"_

…_not of use…_

Steve runs lightly through the corridors of the helicarrier. For a secret organization they're remarkably trusting, letting people like Stark and Banner roam free, but he supposes they were certain _he _wouldn't do anything untoward. He supposes they thought _he _was no threat.

"… _sorry kid, you're ineligible on your asthma alone."_

"_Couldn't you do something?"_

"_I am doing something. I'm doing you a favour."_

"_Please…"_

"_Kid you'd be no use to anyone out there."_

The door is easy enough to force. He supposes they're not used to thinking of what the shield can do. Tony would know, of course, because Tony knew those sorts of things, and he is certain the file they have on him has all the properties of the shield that Stark recorded when it was first made, but it, like him, has been on ice for so long that he suspects people have forgotten. He smiles to himself, remembering the clang of the hammer and the shock through his arm as Thor attacked in the forest. The Asgardian would know as well, but the concept of Thor having to break in anywhere to find things out is amusing. Thor would probably just shout at someone until they gave him the answer. It would probably be very effective.

_Erskine taps his chest twice and Steve knows full well what he means, but what's the use, really? When he's too late to do anything, to late to stop the bullets, take back the vial, save the lab. He takes a shuddering breath, amazed at the capacity in lungs no longer crippled by sickness and closes his eyes. _

_At least he can find the person who did this._

_He can be of _some _use._

The SHIELD guards don't see him. He makes a note to tell Fury how useless they are, as well as a few more notes about training and the importance of every person in a unit counting, then forgets it when he gets to the first crate. He doesn't even need the shield to break the lock on this one and what he finds inside sends a pit of cold straight to his stomach.

"_Hold on. Just take my hand."_

_There isn't even enough time to shout out to him. Bucky is gone, just like that, and he couldn't do anything._

_He is no use at all._

He drops the gun on the bench and enjoys, for a second, the look of surprise on Tony's face, and the small encouraging smile on Bruce's. The weapon is so like the hydra weapons he saw in his other life that he feels slightly sick to have even touched one. Sometimes, brute force is more useful than Tony's tech.

Or at least quicker.

_The drinks taste the same as they always do, but they don't _do _anything. He doesn't feel numb, he's full of rage. It fills him up and spills out and he wishes he could hit something until he's tired but he doesn't _get _tired any more, not in the way he needs._

_He could run from here all the way back to Brooklyn and it wouldn't do anything to change things._

"Put on the damn suit!" Tony doesn't back down, doesn't stop arguing and all Steve wants to do is hit him and on one level he knows full well that it's because it was the old problem — you're useless, Steve, you can't help them, you can't stop them, and _you'll never bring them back._

_The wall of white that approaches should steal thought and speech, but he finds it in him to keep talking to her, wanting to hear those last few words before he'll stop hearing anything at all. _

_This is something he can do to be of use. And perhaps after he's done it he can be at peace._


	5. Restless

It's a feeling he's always had, since he was small, but back then he couldn't do anything to put it to rest.

Of course now he can't do anything to put it to rest either, because… _no fatigue… _but while he's running, or fighting, or punching a bag it lies quiet in him. So long as he's doing _something. _

Bucky didn't sleep much either, so it was ok during the war. They would have long conversations, standing watch or trying to keep warm in cheap army boots (Steve's boots were special issue, but Stark hadn't managed to make them warm enough, or perhaps that was just the curse of everything army) even though Steve was worried about him. He needed more sleep that Steve did, pushed himself too hard trying to keep up with the enhancements science had given his best buddy, but he wasn't sleeping, or when he was he wasn't sleeping _well._

He wondered what they'd done to him, before he'd found him, strapped to that table in that lab with those men and that was when the rage and the restlessness would boil over and he would have to pace. Bucky never talked about it. Steve never asked. He wishes now that he had, perhaps for those months when they were working together if he'd just _talked _about it, he wouldn't have been so…

…sad.

These days the corridors of the Tower are silent as he runs them. Jarvis knows his routine by now, knows that sometimes the treadmill in the gym isn't good enough, and the outside world is too strange and Jarvis tracks his route and opens the doors for him without comment. It seems strange to be grateful to a machine for not disturbing his thoughts, but he is, and on the rare occasions when Jarvis does speak Steve doesn't mind.

He never sees the others. Tony doesn't do physical exercise when he's sleepless, he builds things, and the rest of the people who live in the Tower are less flagrant about their inability to make it through the night. But one night he runs down to the garage because for some reason he can't bring himself to simply roam the corridors alone and he doesn't know exactly _why _until he gets there.

"What can I do for you Cap?"

Tony is under a bench littered with debris from one or another of his projects. The ridiculous music he loves (which to Cap sounds like random people walking through the room and shouting into microphones while others conduct a riot in the background) is blaring through the speakers and Steve is certain there's no way he could have heard him come in…

"How did you know it was me?"

"Jarvis told me," Tony says, poking his head up. He's wearing welding goggles and Steve knows it's stupid to feel betrayed by a machine _that Tony built _but there is still a small surge of hurt that Jarvis mentioned anything about Steve's night runs at all.

"I ah… wanted to ask you something."

"No, you can't hook up with the Johnson twins this Thursday they've got a contract thing in Paris…"

Steve sighs. "It's _not _about girls, Tony."

Tony's head disappears again. "Well I'm already bored."

Steve rubs the back of his head. "Well. Technically I suppose it _is. _About girls. A girl. Uh…"

The goggles pop back up over the bench and Steve imagines Tony's face changes from smug amused to smug intrigued (Steve is certain there is an expression in there that doesn't have _smug _attached to it but he's yet to see it) and he stands up.

"Well, well, well, is little Cap finally growing up and asking for advice?"

Steve reminds himself that Tony has no idea, which is why it isn't a good idea to punch him into the wall.

"Not like that. I wanted… I wondered…"

Tony's eyes narrow. "Come on Steve, I'm only kidding with you."

"I know, Tony. Contrary to your continuing belief, I'm familiar with all forms of sarcasm."

"They had sarcasm in the forties? Who knew?" Steve just looks at him and Tony folds his arms. "Ok, this is obviously serious. What is it?"

"I want to find someone. From… before."

Tony cocks his head on one side. "Before they put you on ice?"

Steve winces. "Yes."

"Well that should be easy enough." Tony pulls the goggles from his head and the gloves from his hands and jerks his head towards the massive panel of computer screens at one end of the garage. He spins the swivel chair and poises his hands over the keyboards, looking for all the world like he's about to play a concerto. "What's her name?"

"Peggy. Uh… Margaret Carter."

Tony's hands still for a fraction of a second, then he glances up at Steve and the smug is still there, yes, but there's also a hint of sympathy.

"You sure?"

Steve swallows, then nods.

Tony nods back. "All right then."

He wonders what has changed, that just asking for something like that has made him feel so different, and he suddenly realizes that, for the first time in weeks, as he watches Tony's hands fly on the keyboard, he doesn't feel restless at all.


	6. Snowflake

They fall slowly.

He didn't


	7. Haze

Steve draws when he travels. He finds it soothing. In the back of the trucks, during the war, even though paper and good pencils were hard to come by. He drew portraits of his fellow soldiers — Dugan was a favourite — that mustache was difficult to get right but the rest of his face was like a map of experience. Dum Dum never got tired of looking at the pictures and critiquing Steve's style. He thought Steve never quite captured the magnificence of the facial hair, that was how he put it, and the others would punch him and laugh about it.

Steve privately thought he was right. There was something living about that mustache that just didn't translate to paper very well.

These days travel is so much faster that he doesn't get as much done. The quinjets take them into the heat of battle and Steve hasn't got time to finish a lot of what he starts. His notebook is full of half-faces. Clint turning to talk to Natasha, Tony in the act of putting on his helmet, Fury without an eyepatch…

They look like the faces of ghosts. Or dreams.

"What are you drawing there, Captain?" Natasha is standing, holding onto a ceiling strap in the belly of the quinjet. She likes to be on her feet, poised and balanced like the dancer she used to be. Or used to think she was.

_That_ had been an interesting story.

"Old friends," he says, smiling. He points out Dum Dum, and Jaques, and Jim, tells her their names. Dum Dum is finished, but the others are in varying states of completion. He's decided he's going to keep working on this one, he's going to draw them all the way he remembers them, the way he imagines they would have been at the end of the war.

"Who's that?" Natasha says, pointing at the man in the drawing standing next to Steve and his smile falters a little.

"That's Bucky," he says.

His face isn't finished, just one eye and the hint of a smirk on his lips.

Natasha grins. "The famous Bucky Barnes," she says, then cocks her head on one side. "You know, he looks like someone I used to know."

Steve smiles.

Faces in dreams


	8. Flame

It starts when he sees the first pictures coming back from the front. The landlady at the boarding house has a nephew in England who is fighting and she regales them with stories about his supposed exploits over dinner.

Steve has always enjoyed her cooking, and he listens intently as she talks about what's happening. America isn't involved of course, and Steve has enough political knowledge to understand why, but still the flame is started in his gut at the thought of those men and women dying for their countries, because Germany and Japan have, of all things, a sense of _entitlement._

Mrs Gibson calls him a good lad and gives him extra helpings that he doesn't finish, because he does her a drawing of her nephew in his fatigues — just something from a picture she shows him, but she has it framed and shows it to her guests and he even manages to get a commission piece out of it that helps him buy that new coat he needs.

It's fanned when, as he always suspected, Bucky joins up. He shouldn't be surprised — Buck's military to the bone. When his parents died it was only a matter of time before he would be taken back — they'd only sent him to the orphanage because the law had come knocking. War is just around the corner, he fancies he can smell it in the air, and he _knows _they'll never take him but he can't help but start trying to think of ways to fool the doctors…

After Pearl Harbour it just becomes a constant burn that he can only mitigate by trying again, and again and again, until Bucky has his orders (the 107th, of course, more fuel) and Erskine finally gives him the chance he needs and…

…as the years pass he thinks that the flame will have to die down, eventually. The war is over. His time is done. But the urge to fight doesn't fade and sometimes he thinks it's the serum and sometimes…

…he knows it isn't


	9. Formal

"What do you mean you don't know how to tie a bowtie? You're from the _forties."_

Steve sighs. "I wasn't frequenting balls, Tony. Even after the serum formal occasions meant full dress uniform, not a tuxedo."

"Well where's your full dress uniform now then?"

Steve looks at him and then jerks his head towards the glass case that holds his suit and shield. Tony frowns. "Yes well, spangly isn't really the tone we're going for tonight, so how about I tie that thing for you?"

Steve stands still while Tony fiddles. "God, Cap, your neck is like a tree trunk. I'm surprised they had a tie big enough for you."

"Is there going to be dancing?" Steve says suddenly as Tony finishes the last adjustment and stands back to admire his work.

"Of course," Tony says. "Well, not like you used to have back in _your day, _but there'll be dancing. Later on there will probably be vomiting and shouting too, although I have bouncers to make sure that happens in the alleyways rather than right in the middle of the party…"

"Tony I don't know how to dance."

Tony laughs. "What?"

"I've never danced, Tony. I'll make a fool of myself."

"Captain Rogers," he looks up to see Natasha in the doorway, smiling at him. Tony spins around and grins.

"Agent Romanoff, you look good enough to eat."

"Mr Stark I suggest you shut your mouth before I cut out your tongue."

"Some things are worth mortal injury," Tony smirks.

Steve swallows. The dress is long and high necked, and that's about as far as Steve's brain can get before it shuts down. "Agent Romanoff, you look beautiful," he says, and Natasha smiles and comes forward.

"Tony you should take lessons on how to compliment a lady from the Captain," she says, and reaches out one hand to undo Steve's tie.

Tony holds up his hands. "I haven't had any complaints from Pepper," he says. Then shrugs. "Well, not today any way." There's a pause, then a slight huff. "I'll leave you two timelords to it then, shall I?"

Steve doesn't really see him leave. "Tony doesn't know how to tie _other people's _ties," Natasha says softly as her deft fingers redo the job.

"I wouldn't put it past him to do it wrong on purpose," Steve says.

Natasha smirks and finishes, stepping back. "There. You look perfect."

"I feel like a gorilla in a penguin suit."

The smirk turns into a grin. "Like I said. Perfect." She cocks her head on one side and considers him for a long moment. "What's wrong?" she says.

"Did you mean what you said, the other day?"

"About what?"

"Teaching me to dance."

She slips in beside him, her head barely reaching the middle of his chest, and takes his arm. It's a natural pose, one that he can do easily, even if the last time he took a woman's arm like this _he _was the shorter one.

"Just follow my lead, Captain," she says as they step out towards the Stark ballroom. She pats his hand. "I'll look after you.


	10. Companion

When he was a kid he didn't have many friends. That was all right. He wasn't really the most social of people, when it got down to it, he preferred to read or draw and neither of those were things he could do with someone interrupting him all the time. There was the odd child, here and there, who would talk to him about comics or attempt to get him to join in some sports, and he appreciated the kindnesses when they were given and tried to give out some of his own.

At the orphanage, when they first brought in Bucky, he thought he would be one of the kids who picked on him, or one of the kids who ignored him completely. Bucky was tall and strong, and had an easy laugh and a way with words and Steve just assumed he'd never want to talk to someone like him.

He'd been wrong.

It started with subtle things. A hand on the shoulder of a kid who was about to nudge Steve's shoulder while he was drawing. A comic, stolen from him before he'd finished reading, returned on his pillow that night. A friendly smile when he came into the room that Steve found himself returning without thinking.

Finally, a long conversation one afternoon, sitting on the back wall of the yard, with a handful of stolen apples (Steve only found out they were stolen after they were eaten and resting uneasily in his small belly — too green, the cook had been going to make pie, but they'd been too much off a temptation for a restless, hungry army orphan, and he'd stolen too many to eat by himself) kicking their feet over the edge of what for Steve was a world full of possibilities that would always be slightly out of reach. Bucky talked constantly about going back to the army, being a soldier like his dad, and while a small part of Steve longed for that life, he tried very hard to keep it small.

They'd never take him.

But it was good to share those wishes with someone, good to have companionship that wasn't judging, good to just be _young_ and be _friends_ and have the whole of their future ahead of them and no real knowing what direction those futures would take.

He never really knew why it was Bucky stayed close to him all those years, never understood why someone with all of his advantages could see something in Steve that made him want to be his friend, but he didn't question it too closely. It was a valuable thing, and he wanted to keep it.


	11. Move

He never moves fast enough.

He's slow before the serum, but at least then he has excuses. His lungs, his bones, the way his body never quite lives up to the actions he wants to make — the connection between brain and muscle is off and he just can't force it to work properly.

That was why he liked to draw, he supposed. The movements of his hand were small enough that they didn't require effort, his arm and fingers responded the way they were supposed to, and even after the serum, after a few clumsy efforts at drawing where he broke the pencil (it took a while to get used to the enhanced strength) it was a relief to know that he still had that outlet.

The serum doesn't stop him from being too slow, though. In New York, after the portal is closed and the adrenalin has worn off and the bone-tiredness has set in (not fatigue, exactly, but just a crushing need for stillness and quiet) In the ruins of blasted cars and falling debris there are bodies, bodies that he couldn't save, and he blinks, remembering other bodies, older ones in uniform, people that _he _killed, not just people who were killed in front of him.

"Steve Rogers, are you all right?"

He blinks. "Uh. Yeah, Thor. Just… there's a lot of work to be done. Lot of homes are gone… so many…" He trails off, seeing the uncharacteristically grim look on Thor's face, remembering that it was his brother who was behind this. He shakes his head. "I guess I'm just tired, that's all."

"Here," Thor says, helping him lift aside a fallen piece of masonry.

They work in tandem for a time, the rhythm and movement similar to how it had been during the fight, a silent acknowledgement of each person's strength and determination to make up for things they thought were their responsibility.

Moving forward.


	12. Silver

He remembers it as dark and flowing. He spent enough time in the USO to know that those curls didn't come about through natural means, and sometimes, at night, in the cold and the privacy of his own thoughts, he would imagine how it must look before the rollers got to it — was it naturally curly, falling in waves down her back, or did it fall straight and dark in front of her eyes, hiding the expression on pale lips free of lipstick?

He'd seen his mother without makeup of course, but the only other women he'd seen without it had been prisoners, and he didn't like to think about that, tired eyes looking out from prematurely lined faces, women who had seen more of the world's horror than any of his men.

When he came out of the ice it had been a shock, to see the difference, _the sheer variety _in women. Not just women, men too. Colors jarring and clashing, a clamor of sensory overload, like so much else in New York that was different. But… he'd seen things much more shocking than an exposed, tattooed thigh or a heel long enough and sharp enough to kill a man with a single thrust and while he might find it _overwhelming _it was only because it was _other _and not because he disapproved.

Or at least that was what he told himself.

When she answered the door the first thing he saw was the silver of her hair. Still long, but instead of the gentle, sculpted curls it was tied back, severely. A beautiful color in its own way, and she was still beautiful, the face he knew looking out from the face he saw. The smile was the same, and the voice, roughened by age, nonetheless had the same sharpness, the same inflections. He stood for a long, long moment, looking at her, searching her face, and he felt embarrassed after, realizing what it would have looked like, how she must feel to see him standing there, looking outwardly exactly the same as when they'd said goodbye more than a lifetime ago.

_But he wasn't the same, not inside, he may have only lived the years in ice but he still felt the weight of them on him, bowing him down like a solid wall of cold…_

He should have been sad to see her, old and changed, he should have felt the loss of all the things that could have been, all the things he'd lost, but he found at the end the only thing he could feel was grateful that she was still there.


	13. Prepared

"You're sure it's _both _of them?"

"Dad, they're taller than all our other customers put together. Look at the picture!" his son flung his arm at the picture of Captain America and Thor, signed by both men, of course, that graced the wall of their tiny shawarma establishment. Curse him for setting up shop so close to Stark Tower. Or bless him. He was probably going to make a lot of money tonight. "Of course it's both of them."

"They usually come separately. How many spits do we have running?"

"Just two!"

"Put two more on," he swore under his breath. "How much prep did you do this morning? We need more onions! We'll _never _be able to satisfy them…"

He barked out a few more orders, panic overcoming him, before an idea hit him. "And close the store."

"What?"

"After they get in here. Put the closed sign up. They can eat everything we've prepared and we won't disappoint any other customers if they think there's been an accident or something… Bahaar, get the extra hummus out, call Hussein and get him to deliver more tahini and for the love of everything holy start making more tabbouleh you know the Asgardian eats it by the barrel full."

He waved his hands, urging the boy to open the door for Captain America and Thor and show them to a table. While they were distracted, looking at menus he gestured emphatically at his son, who rolled his eyes and surreptitiously flipped the sign on their door from "open" to "closed".

When it was over and they were cleaning up the (extremely small) amount of food the two men had left in their wake, Aarif collapsed in a spare chair and blinked.

He could only pray they wouldn't decide to make this a regular thing or he might have to expand the shop into the bookstore next door.


	14. Knowledge

He'd always been attentive in lessons. He did well in classes, he loved to read, he was competent in languages, science, math. It hadn't seemed important, to pretend ignorance, not when there were so many other reasons for children to pick on him. His mother had always said pretending to be stupider than you were was… well… stupid and stupidity was nothing to be proud of.

That was why it was so frustrating now, coming out of the ice. Looking blankly at a computer screen, unable to make it do what he wanted. Having to ask for help to drive a car, when he'd driven tanks through the forests of Germany and even flown planes (not often, no, and only in extreme emergencies, but back then it had just seemed easier).

He'd known how to navigate through unfamiliar terrain, how to field strip ten different types of weapon, how to plan attack strategies that took advantage of the technology he had at his disposal and now… now…

Transport was too fast. Compasses were redundant (although he still had his, close to his heart, her picture worn and faded now, but protected from the ice by its proximity to him all those years), the bewildering array of power sources and devices with which he could communicate…

…there was only so much he could stuff into his brain at once. It was slow going. Negotiating the bits and pieces of technology that Tony gave him (he suspected, just to watch him attempt to make it work and give up in frustration) and the unspoken assumption that he _didn't _know something when quite often he did, perfectly well…

He had an unexpected ally in Bruce Banner, and Natasha, who would drop round to chat and somehow end up giving him lessons in exactly how to operate an ipad (or Tony's version of an ipad, which he insisted was better, even though Bruce smirked when he said that) or what he needed to do to program the treadmill so that it gave him a routine that was halfway challenging (THAT had been an exercise in testing the limits of the design and stress on the machine, although with a bit of tinkering it had worked out ok).

Sometimes, though, he liked to take a step back and catch up in his own way. He'd retreat to his apartment and sit in the one comfortable chair, by the window, with a stack of actual books that he'd always meant to read but never had the time to, old editions that he found in second hand bookstores, hardbacks that smelled the way books had always smelled and made him feel a little like he was in a world that moved at a pace he could understand. Tony bugged him to do something with his apartment to make it look like it was actually in Stark Tower and not some old brownstone in the slums, but Steve always resisted. It might make him a fussy old man, but he figured he had the right to keep a little piece of the forties for himself, even if the forties he remembered had been dirty and miserable and full of disappointments…

They'd been _his _and he'd _known _them without having to _learn._


	15. Denial

Drinking. That's what you're supposed to do when someone you love dies, isn't it? Unfortunately Steve is in France in the middle of the war and finding somewhere that actually has alcohol, more to the point, alcohol that the terrified population is willing to give him, is more difficult than he thought it would be. Still, he's determined, and skilled, and by the time he finds the ruins of the pub, pretty darned desperate.

A few bottles lie under rubble, he manages to find a glass that isn't chipped and a table that has more than two legs. The chair even has a back, which is good. He hasn't been drunk too many times in his young life, but he does remember the last time _with Bucky but don't go there don't think about that _he'd had trouble sitting upright after a while and he is nothing if not prepared…

It's after the third shot that he realizes it's not going to work. His head is clear and his hands are steady. The liquid level in the bottle is going down and _nothing is happening._

Well, that's not strictly true. There's a second, after each shot hits his stomach, where warmth spreads out and tries to sink its tendrils into his bloodstream. He imagines he can feel the serum in his blood reacting, recognizing the threat, neutralizing it, and it becomes a game, then, for a short while, seeing if he can beat the serum, seeing if he can drink enough to outsmart it, numb the pain, stop himself from seeing Bucky's face and hearing his scream as he fell.

It doesn't work, of course. Instead he has to pick his way out to the remains of the restroom and get rid of what he's drunk, piss it away like so many of the lives that have been lost in the hopelessness of war.

He finds another bottle anyway, but he doesn't try to outsmart the serum this time, just sits and stares out at the ruins of the town, occasionally sipping and savoring the flavor rather than trying to use it as an escape from the responsibility that he knows is his.

He only notices that he's crying when he hears her tread on the rubble outside. He almost thanks the serum for his enhanced hearing, giving him enough time to wipe the tears from his face before she sees, before remembering that it's the serum's fault that he's sitting here, sober and alone and _to blame._


	16. Wind

It's the first time he's ever jumped out of a plane.

Of course, since the serum, there have been a lot of firsts. There was the first time he didn't get winded walking up a hill, the first time a girl looked at him without pity, the first time he'd been on stage in front of people, the first time he'd punched a guy and the guy had stayed down, but this first seems a little bit more… momentous than those.

For one thing, people are shooting at him. While it's not the first time _that's _happened, it's certainly the first time they've been shooting at him with anti-aircraft artillery. The serum's good, but a direct hit from one of those guns will be the end of him, super healing or not.

For another thing, he just _jumped out of a plane into a war zone._

He takes a second, before he pulls the string on his 'chute, to appreciate that. This morning he was standing on stage in front of an angry mob of hardened soldiers, wearing _tights _and now he's feeling cold wind rush over his face and hearing the boom of guns trying to shoot down Howard and Peggy's plane.

Thinking of the plane makes his heart skip and he looks up, but he can't see it, not with the 'chute deployed, and he prays, quickly, that they'll get away safely, before he looks down to see the ground rushing up at him — seemingly as fast as the wind.

He lands and rolls, with an ease that surprises him. They trained for this, but when they trained he was fragile and the landing had felt like being hit with a hammer. This time his muscles bunch together and he ends up rolling and standing with what seems like no effort at all, in a clearing that is blessedly free of enemy troops. He can hear them, though, boots crunching on twigs and grass, and he can see further than he remembers being able to as well and as he sheds the remains of the parachute and checks that he has all he needs — shield, transponder, revolver, helmet — he feels alive in a way he never has before. For the first time his body responds the way he always knew it should in the place he'd always wanted it to be, and it is far more exhilarating than the wind through his hair as he fell towards earth and it's a feeling that he'll never really let go.


	17. Order

He still feels bad about giving the order. He doesn't hesitate, he knew it would be necessary even before he managed to get himself accepted, but the reality of actually killing people didn't hit home until he was the one _telling other people _to do it.

Telling Bucky to do it is the worst.

Unfortunately for them, he's the best sniper they've got. It's a skill they'd never had time to discover, back in New York. Sure Bucky had been good at throwing rocks at cans, but you didn't get the chance to handle high end weaponry when you were bumming it in an orphanage in Brooklyn with no shoes. He wondered if Bucky's dad had taught him some of that, before he'd died.

Steve's dad hadn't taught him anything before he died, not directly. Afterwards, he'd come away with a vague notion that dying and leaving your mother and son to fend for themselves in a harsh world was something best to be avoided. His mother had talked about what a good man he'd been, how he'd fought for them and did his best to keep their country safe and free, but he wondered, these days, if her words about his father had been more for Steve's benefit. They didn't seem to match up to the sad, tall figure he remembered from his early childhood, drink in hand and shadows of past horrors on his face, remembering a war fought too long and too hard by men who were still stuck in an age where war was supposed to be honorable.

The gunshot rang out and the hydra soldier who had been doing his best to kill him fell. Steve looked up and gave his friend a salute, and he caught the glint of Bucky's grin as he ducked back out of sight. Bucky preferred to shoot through the heart, when he could, not the head. Hydra helmets, and hydra heads, were tough and headshots tended to be messy.

Bucky joked that he didn't like it when Steve got blood and brain matter on the shield.

The others laughed at those jokes, but Steve's smile didn't always reach his eyes. The war had changed them, made them into this, but he didn't have to want it and he didn't have to like it. They had a job to do, but it never made the order easier to give.

He hoped it never would.


	18. Thanks

They want him to go to some ceremony and present him with his posthumous medals. He argues with Fury about it.

"You need to build up your image, Cap," he says, while Steve goes at a punching bag. "You don't want to be locked up here forever, moping."

"Is that what you think I'm doing, sir?" he says.

"Well, you sure ain't holding press conferences or singing in the USO."

Steve snorts bitterly. "I was never meant to be a showman, sir," Steve says, laying down another set of punches. "I'm not interested in going out there, Sir. Not… not yet."

The Director comes around to the front of the bag — not the safest place in the room for him, not by a long shot. There's a reason there are three spare bags lined up in a row near him, a reason why he goes to bed each night with bruised knuckles and aching muscles (the bruises and the aches are gone before morning and he has to work hard to get them back again). "You think you've lost everything you believe in, Captain Rogers," Fury says, that one dark eye fixing him in a resolute gaze.

Steve doesn't try very hard to hide the anger from his voice. "With all due respect, sir, I don't believe that." His fists thud into the bag. Once. Once more. Twice in quick succession. He pauses, catching his breath. "It's not the things I believe in that are dead. It's the_ people."_

The eye blinks. He wonders if he's managed to shock Fury with his bluntness, but thinks not. This man has seen more than Steve has, even if he is younger. Counting how many years they have on each other would be pointless.

That's part of the problem.

Fury doesn't exactly look away from Steve's gaze, but he's definitely uncomfortable with it as he shrugs. "You're a war hero," he says. "They just want to give you some of the thanks you're due, Cap."

"That's not true, either, sir, and you know it."

He's stopped punching. It takes him a while to notice it. Instead he's clinging to the bag as though it's the only thing keeping him up.

Fury crosses his arms. "So why don't you tell me what _is _true, Captain?" he says.

"They want to use me as a national icon. They want to make me the poster boy for the American way and put me in my tights again so I can sell… whatever the equivalent of war bonds is these days, I don't know. They want to say 'Here is Captain America and we brought him back from the dead! And we'll even thank him for the privilege!'"

"Do you have some objection to continuing to serve your country, Captain Rogers? As I recall you were pretty keen to do it back in your day."

"Sir, I'm not even sure what country this _is." _He lets go of the bag and sits on a nearby bench, stripping off his gloves, looking at his hands. "I'm not going to go out there and fight again until I know what I'm fighting for. I'm sorry if…" he rubs a sweaty hand through his hair. "I'm sorry if that's a disappointment to you. Sir."

He thinks he sees sympathy on Fury's face. "I won't force you to go out there, Cap," he says after a long moment. "But I hope if there's a real threat some day I can count on you to do the right thing."

Fury leaves and Steve looks at his hands for a long time, wondering. _The right thing. _

He sighs and starts strapping on his gloves. Once he finds out what the right thing is he'll do it. He always does.


	19. Summer

The only time Steve's seen beaches before now has been in the rain, or during an op (usually at night, in the middle of winter) and although he can give a long dissertation of why it's important not to let sand get into your revolver he hasn't actually ever made a sand castle.

"You _can _swim, can't you Captain Rogers?" Natasha's gentle teasing expression is familiar enough that he smiles.

"Would have been an awful short stint as a super soldier if I couldn't," he says.

She gently prods him in the midsection. "Go. Have fun," she says. "That's what we're here for, after all."

Here is Florida, on the most bizarre mission he's ever been sent on (and that includes trying to track down the source of a vampire outbreak in Eastern Europe), wearing star spangled swimming trunks (at least they went down to almost his knees, the first pair Tony had suggested had been… less than appealing) and looking at an expanse of sun and sand that seemed…improbably perfect.

He discovers he loves it.

He breaks the surface, well out past where the waves start arching into the shore, and sees a… what are they called again? a _jetski_ parked up alongside him, a concerned lifeguard peering at him.

"Sir you're a long way out!" she says, then blinks. He looks back towards the shore, where he thinks he sees the beginning of a sand-fortress being made by Clint and Thor. They _are _a long way away, it's hard even with his enhanced sight to make out the red of Natasha's hair. He glances up at the girl, who looks impossibly young, the bright yellow of her lifejacket contrasting with her dark skin, and gives her his best smile.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to worry anyone!"

"That's… hey… you're…."

"I promise not to drown," he says. "I'm actually a pretty good swimmer!"

"Oh, I'm sure you are… Captain… it's just policy when someone goes this far out to offer them a lift back…"

He grins, cocking his head on one side as he treads water. "On that?" he says, indicating the jetski.

"Uh… yes! You can come up behind me if you want…"

"That'd be swell, ma'am!"

She looks down shyly for a second, then he sees the white flash of teeth as she grins and shrugs. "Come on up!" She holds out a hand to help him up. He takes it, even though he probably doesn't need to, then settles in behind her. She's warm and damp, he's probably cold and damp, so he apologizes, which makes her laugh.

"Hey, I'm giving Captain America a ride back to shore. If I tell the story right I can make it sound like I _rescued _you. You won't catch me complaining."

He smiles, and then she starts the jetski, and the smile turns into a laugh, which turns into a wild _whoop _and ends up with both of them screaming at the top of their lungs as they shoot around the water, avoiding surfers and swimmers and generally being totally irresponsible.

She lets him off at shore and he stands in the water for a moment, taking a few deep breaths.

"Thanks," he said. "I think the last time I had that much fun I was driving a tank."

"You were driving… " bits of her hair have escaped her tight black braid and her dark eyes are shining. "I don't think I want to know."

"I'll tell you the story sometime."

She gives him a long look. "I'd like that."

When he gets back to New York, after the mess in the swamps with the Man-Thing, the weight of Thor's disappointment and their failure makes them all feel less like they've been on a holiday and more like they've been through a wringer. He unpacks his things, folding up the swimming trunks and remembers the feeling of flying over the water _just for the thrill of it, _not for a mission, not because of duty and responsibility, just for _fun, _and he finds a few moments to regret that he never went back to ask her name.


	20. Transformation

Looking at it in the files… he has a lot of trouble believing. When he meets Banner, it's even more difficult.

Banner and Hulk are completely separate in his head, the other guy is just that… he's other, he's not this tired, scruffy man with kind eyes and a hesitant smile. He can't conceive of someone like Banner having anything of the thing he'd seen in those videos, _inside_ him. It's not logical and Steve can't process it.

Banner is a _good _man. Erskine said that the serum made good great. How can good be turned into _that?_

Then he _sees_ the Hulk.

The Hulk is something he's never encountered before.

Schmidt was all hate. Steve remembers facing him and _seeing_ the hate etched into the lines of that red face, hate for opportunities lost, hate for the powerless, the weak, those he considered unworthy (and of course, Steve eventually realized, hate for himself) and while hate is despicable and violent there is a certain logic to it. It is cool enough for Schmidt to be rational, to make plans that cause the deaths of Steve's friends, to firmly step his way towards world domination.

Steve hated Schmidt right back, there was no doubt about that, and sometimes, especially after Bucky's death, he could feel that hate writhing and coiling in his gut as though it wanted to become something tangible.

He'd always managed to control it.

The Hulk is different. The Hulk is rage, pure and simple, and it is rage so great and so intense that Banner's body is not enough to contain it. It is a natural force, a tornado of violence and that Banner can direct it at all is a miracle. Steve knew, from the files, where the rage came from, but it was an intellectual knowledge, until he actually sees it in action he cannot conceive of the hurt one person can do to another, the fuel that fires that rage.

At that thought he feels a surge of it himself, that rage, and he clamps down on it in sudden fear.

When the battle is over and Banner is pale and shaking and _himself _again Steve can't bring himself to talk to him for a while. He looks at his own hand, over and over, at the smooth perfection of fast-healing skin and he wonders.

_He wonders._


	21. Look

The address Tasha gives him is for a very swish part of town — it was swish even before he went into the ice, and he actually doesn't think he's ever been there, but Janet is new to the Avengers and it's important that she feels welcome.

Tasha was _very _insistent on him picking up the suit they'd ordered and wearing it, and looking at it now, he swallows nervously. If she wants him to wear _this _it must be a very swish place indeed, and he is worried that his Brooklyn accent will get him turned away at the door.

Luckily the doorman doesn't even ask him who he is, just takes one look at him and waves him through (Steve doesn't know why, the guy didn't even recognize him) and he spots their table. Tony and Janet and Natasha are already there, as is Banner, who looks bewildered but happy, which is one of his natural states and definitely one Steve can sympathize with. Natasha gives him a beaming smile, Janet a tentative one, Banner a friendly smirk.

Tony just gives him a look.

Steve is used to Tony's looks by now, so he sits himself down and takes a moment to appreciate the atmosphere. They'd tried to give him a medal, once, and he imagined the dinner afterwards would have been in a place like this, but back in those days he had other things to do and there was a war on and it seemed frivolous to spend money and time on something so… extravagant. He's come to accept that sometimes it's all right to treat yourself now, and there's certainly no shortage of money in _this _gathering (he remembered the artworks on the walls of Janet's apartment, the cavalier way Tony had rebuilt Stark Tower after the Chitauri invasion) and food was something he was beginning to understand can be done _well._

Tony is uncharacteristically silent for the meal and Tasha keeps smirking. Finally he nudges Banner with one elbow. Carefully, of course, he doesn't have any desire for the restaurant to have a green visitation. "What's with Tony?" he says softly. Banner grins at him.

"You don't know?"

Steve shakes his head, and Banner chuckles. Steve looks up to see Tony giving them a glare and Jan and Tasha giggling. Banner pats his hand. "Don't worry, Steve, he'll get over it."

Steve shrugs and keeps eating. The food is _really good._


	22. Tremble

He touches Tony's hand, where the gauntlet has ripped away, to find it is trembling a little. That's understandable, given a room has just collapsed on them, and a mad robot has just hacked Tony's suit, but Steve still has enough in him to be surprised, and to pull his hand back.

He's pretty sure Tony wouldn't want him to know he was afraid.

"It'll reboot," Tony says. "I just have to wait a few…" there is a crash from outside and Steve looks around to see through the small gap that their position is seconds from being discovered.

"Wait here," he says, hefting the shield. "I'll buy you some time." The suit won't let him move or take it off, so Tony is stuck here at least until it restarts, and there's no way to get him out of there without killing him, and Steve needs to kill the drones that are attacking them before he can even _try _to get communication out of the tower. Ultron is too good, too quick, but if he can give Tony a bit of time maybe he'll be able to…

"NO!" Tony screams it, and it's so different from Tony's normal voice, even when he's in the midst of battle, that Steve stops before he goes. "No, you stay here Captain America," the voice is more normal now, and Steve blinks. "You don't need to go out there, Thor'll deal with them, _Jan _will deal with them, you don't have to fucking _die _because my tech is _too damned slow…"_

Steve looks at him again and wishes for a moment that the faceplate was up, because there's a lot of something in that voice, history, pain, accusation, _something _that he doesn't know and doesn't know if he wants to. "Tony I can't stay in here while the others are in danger, you know that."

There is a pause, and he can hear Tony's breath, even through the suit, and then there is some muttering, and then a sigh.

"I know," he says finally. "Get out there then. But don't fucking die, all right? Just…"

"I'm hard to kill Tony."

"Yeah that's what they all say."

"Before you kill them?"

Tony is tapping with his free hand at the control panel on his arm now. "Somthin' like that."

"Stay safe Tony."

Tony looks up again, his fingers pausing in their rapid movements. "It's just… if… If you die I'll be very mad."

Steve grins as he climbs out, shield at the ready. The Ultron drones are pretty easy to take out, he doesn't know why Tony was so worried about it. He guesses he never will, but that's all right. "Not half as mad as me, Tony, let me tell you," he mutters, and starts killing robots.


	23. Sunset

Thor likes the roof. Steve doesn't mind heights that much, but the top of Stark Tower is higher than anything manmade he's ever stood on and it's… not exactly frightening, but he'd be lying if he didn't stand well back from the edge whenever he finds a reason to come up here.

It's dusk, and the sun is going down over New York. Cold this time of year, far colder this high up, but Thor doesn't seem to mind that at all and Steve remembers that he's technically a Norse God (or a Norse _alien _Tony would say) and is probably used to temperatures much lower than this.

"Something you require, Steve Rogers?" Thor nearly always hears him coming, even with the wind blowing a gale up here.

"Just wanted to check you were all right, Thor," Steve says. "We had… a bit of a rough time of it. In Florida."

Thor's shoulders slump and he sees the big man shake his head slightly. "I should not be as upset as I am, Steve Rogers."

"Sometimes the people we love do bad things," Steve says. "It doesn't mean we love them any less."

Thor glances at him with a hint of a smile. "I somehow doubt that any relative of yours would be responsible for the same levels of destruction as Loki has wrought here," he says.

Steve smiles at him and shrugs. "I was an only child," he says. "Orphaned young. Could say I was lucky that way."

Thor fingers his hammer and chuckles, but it's a sad sound. "Midgard is a beautiful world," he says. "There is so much here that is worthy of loving. I do not know why my brother could not see it."

Steve sighs and comes up beside Thor, looking out over the city. It _does _look beautiful in the fading light, a few lights turning on here and there. It's still an alien place to him, mostly, although he is getting used to the changes. He has to remind himself that for Thor, it's even more alien. "He wasn't wrong though," he says softly. "I think if you came here like he did, from a dark place, having seen and done dark things… well it would be difficult to see the beauty."

Thor's face turns stern. "That is also true. It is a shame we did not see the darkness in him before he decided to take his anger out on a world that did him no harm."

"You can't blame yourself for this, Thor."

That same, sad chuckle. "Oh, I do believe I can, Steve Rogers." He looks up and smiles. "Thank you for coming here. I will come back down. I just wish to… enjoy the sunset."

Steve looked up into those blue ageless eyes and felt young for the first time since he'd woken. He nodded, backing away. "Take care Thor."


	24. Mad

He gets the letter in amongst all his usual fanmail, and he turns it over in his hands, wondering what in heaven it is for a few minutes before he decides to take it to Clint. Clint is SHIELD, and he's… mostly… sensible, and there is too much bad language in it for him to take it to Natasha, even though he knows she would laugh to think that he wanted her to protect her from it.

Clint is lounging in the kitchen throwing Cap 'n Crunch into the air and catching it in his mouth. Steve has seen him do this a thousand times.

He never misses.

"Cap. What's up?"

"I… got some interesting mail," Steve slides the paper across to Clint, who takes it and runs his eyes over it.

His eyebrows go up and he gives Steve a look over the paper. "This is the only one you've got?"

"To my knowledge, yes."

Clint flicks the letter into his pocket with a movement so fast that not even Steve's eyes can properly track it. "I'll take it to Hill. Get it analyzed. You don't need this crap, Cap."

"Uh… I didn't… what… are you going to do exactly?"

"We'll do forensics on it, see if we can trace who sent it, then we'll track the person down and put a watch on them. This sort of thing is pretty serious, Cap. Are you really telling me you've never gotten a letter like this before? Metal head gets them every day."

"Tony gets… " Steve frowns. "The person who wrote that is sick, Clint. Not a criminal. They need help."

"Well, Cap, help is what they'll get. In the form of being told that it's not a good idea to send threats to Captain America. Whether they take that help or not is up to them." Clint shrugs and throws another piece of cereal in the air. Steve watches the trajectory, which is, of course, perfect, and listens to the crunch as Clint crushes it between his teeth.

"Give me the letter back, Clint," Steve says, holding out his hand.

"Cap, you don't want to let this sort of thing go. It'll only escalate."

"Clint, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself. I doubt the person who wrote that has superpowers, and I live in the house of the most paranoid person in New York."

Clint looks at him for a long moment, then reaches in and brings out the letter. "You'll get more of them," he says.

"Probably," Steve replies, tucking the letter into his pocket.

"The person who wrote that is angry. They're using you as a focus for that anger and it's dangerous. Eventually they'll snap."

"Sometimes when people are mad they need an outlet, Agent Barton," Steve says. "We don't have the right to take that away from them. Even if we might want to."

Clint looks at him for a long moment, then smiles. "Your choice," he says, throwing another piece of cereal.

Steve nods. "That's right."


	25. Thousand

He stands in front of the case, numb disbelief spreading through him. "All I did was sign it," he says.

"You did it in 1942, Steve," Banner says from next to him. They're at the auction house. Fury's made them come for a charity thing, Avengers merchandise auctioned off to help the reconstruction costs. Steve is astonished to see his old suit and shield from the USO — the shield still has the knuckle mark from Schmidt's fist. He decides not to look at the price range on that one if _one trading card _that he doesn't even remember signing is sitting in a glass case with price range _starting at $1000 _plastered on a neat little card underneath it.

"I signed a lot of things in 1942. They can't all be worth that much…"

"Dad had a USO Captain America poster you signed framed in his old workshop," Tony says, absently, tapping at his phone. There's a gauntlet (de-powered, with all relevant tech removed) from the Mark II on sale in the Iron Man section, along with a lot of signed posters and glossy photographs. There's a lot more in the Captain America section, though. It's making Steve feel uncomfortable. "I think he said it was worth $30,000 when I asked him and that was twenty years ago."

Steve's draw drops. "People… people can't have that much money to spend on things like this..."

"Steve people spend this much money on waffles. Don't begrudge them their little collections. Besides," Tony claps him on the shoulder. "It's for charity!"

"I should just go to Brooklyn and stand in the street signing things. We could end poverty overnight."

"Market forces wouldn't allow for that, Steve. You need to brush up on your basic economics." Tony grins. "It'd be a good experiment, though. We could take bets on how long it took you to destabilize the entire economy."

Steve remembers, vaguely, when his father was killed, how they'd come to the door a week later to present his mother (she wasn't sick yet, standing tall and proud and poor in the fading light) with an envelope. The envelope had contained a short letter of condolence and a cheque…

… for $20.

His mother had smiled and sat down shakily and then she had dabbed at her eyes and then, and _then _she had laughed. He'd been hurt and afraid, thinking that she was somehow _glad _that Da had gone.

She'd seen his face and held out her hands to hold his. "Steve, it's not that I don't miss your Da, I do, you know that, and I'd give anything to have him back again but I didn't know how much money we had and… well, let's just say this means we're going to be ok for while." She ruffled his hair and pulled him into a hug. "I should have trusted he wouldn't leave us with nothing. I'm sorry."

"So you're happy because he left us money, Mam?" he said, his voice small.

"Yes, Steve. But you know I'd rather have your Da, don't you?"

"Yes Mam."

Eighty years later, Steve thinks she possibly_ wouldn't_ have rather had his father there, absent and damaged as he had been. Near the end he had been more likely to spend his wage on drink than a new pair of shoes for his wife or a warm coat for his son and he suspected they'd been in trouble well before the mustard gas had taken him out of their lives forever.

That $20 had paid their rent and food for long enough for his mother to find a job at the TB ward, and then they'd been able to scrape by on her salary well enough that Steve doesn't remember being hungry again.

"You're brooding," Tony says, nudging his elbow. "It's not a good look for you Steve."

Steve blinks and puts on his Captain America smile and tries not to think. Money is worth less, these days. He understands more about basic economics than Tony thinks he does.

It doesn't stop him from wincing when the trading card sells for $3000.


	26. Outside

It's noisy. Very _very _noisy. But the noise is wrong. There are cadences that he's never heard before. The rain slick road under his feet feels wrong, even through the boots he is wearing _why was he wearing boots in bed any way his mother would have turned in her grave…_

There are lights. It's the middle of the day, and everywhere there are lights. On all the buildings, on structures on the streets, on the cars that are making those weird sounds and going too fast and smelling _wrong. _When the cars pull up in front of him and he realizes they've caught up with him he has to shut his eyes, briefly, before he turns to see the tall black man with the eyepatch who's calling him _soldier _and he knows that tone of voice, or his body does, far better than he knows anything else in this strange world and so he finds himself turning, stops himself from saluting, the guy is in a long black coat and the last he knew that was _not _a standard US Army uniform….

"You've been asleep Cap. For almost seventy years."

He looks around. There are familiar things, shoved into places he wouldn't have thought to look for them. A shopfront that looks like one he used to visit. A building he's sure he's been inside, even if it is covered with flashing billboards now. He can hear the sound of the general public, muttering to each other, asking who is this person, this crazy person standing in the middle of the street, and their _accents _are the same and they're speaking the same language he used his entire life, and it's these little things that make him think _he's telling the truth_. If someone was trying to trick him they would have made it less familiar. The cars would have been flying, people would have jet packs _later when he reads the file on Tony he will have to do a lot of explaining to Fury about why he bursts into laughter _or get around on moving walkways, not drive about in cars like he used to, that was just too…

Too boring.

He almost laughs.

"You gonna be ok?"

There is an echo of a voice, a beloved voice, and he realizes that he may well have been hearing that echo for seventy years.

_…Ok. A week next Saturday. At the Stork Club. Don't you dare be late…_

Then and only then does he remember the crash, and the wall of white and with a sickening lurch he realizes that there was this one thing, one _important thing _he was supposed to do and he missed it.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah just…" he takes another look at the lights, breathes in the strange air and the sounds and feels the weight of those seventy years settle somewhere in his chest. "I had a date."


	27. Winter

The file Natasha gave him is lying on the table, pictures and reports spread out, uncharacteristically messy. Here and there it's possible to see that he's spent some time trying to decipher russian — a pencil mark in a margin, an open dictionary on the floor under the table. At one stage it is safe to say he has flung the entire package away from him, but his neat soul has rebelled against it and the papers are stacked, some slightly crumpled, back on the table. He knows they have it all digitally any way, Natasha only gave it to him on paper because she knew he would have trouble believing it unless he could _touch _it.

She probably would have felt the same, when they showed her.

"How did you not know who he was?" he asks. She let herself be seen, he knows that. She could easily not have made that heavy tread on the wood floor as she came inside, could have approached him from a direction that meant he couldn't see her reflection in the window he is leaning against. Of all of them, she is the only one who can foil his super solder senses. That she chooses not to means she wants to talk about this, not just…

…stop him from doing something he might regret.

The question he asks is an accusation, it's plain to hear, but he manages to make it sound sympathetic as well. He knows she's suffered too. Thanks to the files, now he knows almost exactly how.

She taps the side of her skull. "They messed with our heads, Steve. I remember him now, but until I saw him face to face…"

Steve doesn't turn around. "They did…_ that …_to him too."

"He didn't know who he was, even before they… you read the file. Neither of us knew who we were when we met." Implicit in that statement was the possibility that she had _never _known, and he winces. "There was a rumour, but there were lots of rumours in that place, Steve. We were never sure if they made them up to torment us."

"You didn't tell me everything about it." She can see the bob of his throat as he swallows. "The thought of… the thought of either of you there… _how can they do that to people?"_

He doesn't expect an answer. He knows. He knows how people can all too readily be made into _things _or _weapons. _He knows from what Schmidt did, he knows from seeing the refugees in Poland, although he thanked God sometimes he never had to be one of the liberators for the camps, he knows from seeing Ross try to take Banner and _use _him that when something has value that is other than the person inside them the person inside them will be ignored.

It's never felt so personal before.

"You said you… " _were lovers. _He can't bring himself to say it. Even though the Bucky he knew would have… he can't _conceive _of the desperation, the horror, the _tragedy _of two people without names finding each other and never ever being able to acknowledge that what they had was worth more than where they were. He wants to take Tasha and Bucky and hold them, and give them somewhere to be that is more than what they had, because they have never had what he had even though some people would say they had so much more.

He feels the hand on his arm. "When you have nothing, sometimes a person will come and show you that there can be… _something." _She looks at the papers on the table. "I like to think otherwise, but you know If I'd never met James it's possible I wouldn't have had the strength to leave with Clint. The first thing they taught us… and the first rule we broke together, was not to trust."

"But he's still killing for them."

"That's not James, Steve. You know it isn't. It's the mockery they've made of him. Not your friend."

"You escaped."

"I did. But you read the file, Steve. You know his circumstances were different to mine."

He looks down at her. Natasha lies. She lies when it's important for her work, and she lies when it's not important, and she lies and lies and lies and he knows that her entire life is made up of lies, but in the ways that are important…

In the ways that are _important_ she is the most honest person he has ever met. She would never, ever lie to him about this.

"I won't let him go, Natasha," he says.

The hand on her arm squeezes. "Neither will I."


	28. Diamond

"Dammit Steve you're reading the map wrong you jerk," Bucky snatches the compass out of his hand and sets it down on the paper. Steve, so fast these days, somehow isn't fast enough to stop Bucky and suddenly the compass is in Bucky's hand. Bucky looks down for a second, taking in the picture and then he snaps it shut, passing it back to him and getting his own from his jacket pocket.

"Dumbass," Bucky says. "Compass is junk, Captain, you need a new one. No wonder your directions are crap."

"Wouldn't take that sort of talk from a junior officer if I were you, Cap'n." Falsworth is grinning.

"Oh, disciplinary action would just be a waste of time," Steve tries for a smile. "I'll have him court martialed and dismissed when we win the war."

The others laugh and Bucky plans their route — he _isn't _as good at that as Steve is, but Steve's willing to concede the point that he needs to delegate occasionally, and the incident is forgotten.

Later that night, at camp, Bucky comes up to him on watch. "Don't you sleep now?" he says. "You were meant to wake me an hour ago."

"Thinking," Steve says. It's cold, but the bitter edge they've been dealing with since they left the Alps is wearing off and he thinks summer is coming.

"You always did too much of that." Bucky gets out a cigarette and lights it, passing it towards Steve, who shakes his head. "Still don't smoke?"

"I can remember what it felt like not to be able to breathe properly, Buck," Steve says. "Those things are foul anyway."

Bucky shrugs, breathes in the smoke and lets it out. "Suit yourself."

They stand in companionable silence for a while. Steve should sleep, he knows that, even though Bucky is partially right — he doesn't need as much as he used to — but they don't get this sort of opportunity much any more.

"She's a beautiful girl, Steve," Bucky says then. Steve smiles into the darkness.

"I know."

"When the war's over you should do right by her. Settle down, have a hundred kids. You always did like kids."

"Somehow I think Peggy'll be a little less enthusiastic about that plan."

Bucky chuckles. "Yeah, not really the settling down type I suppose."

"You know she shot at me once, don't you?"

Bucky grins and looks at his feet. "Yeah, that story has kind of gone round the barracks a bit, Steve."

He laughs. "I guess I should have realized it would." Steve looks up, then down at Bucky again. "What about you?"

Bucky shrugs. "Ask me when the war's over," he says. "I have plans."

"What's her name?"

"No _specific _plans, you jerk. Just… you know. Plans."

He remembered that life drawing class Bucky had been so keen to go to, just before America had joined the war — the ridiculous stick figure he'd drawn and the cheeky grin as he'd leered at the model (she'd leered right back at Bucky, Steve remembered) — and then he remembers finding Bucky in that room with all that equipment and strapped to the cot, pale and sick and shaking, and he frowns.

"Are they different from the plans you had before?" Steve asks. Bucky looks up at him (it is still weird, that Bucky has to look _up _at him, wrong in so many ways) and he doesn't have to say _before what _because he knows what Steve means, that's always been their gift, as friends, that they got what the other was talking about before they even had to say it. In his eyes Steve can read pain, and fear, and uncertainty where before they had only ever held confidence, and his heart clenches.

Bucky nods, a small movement, then draws in another lungful of smoke and lets it escape into the night air. "Yeah," he says. There is a short pause, then a flash of white teeth in the darkness. "Don't think I want a cat any more."

Steve laughs.


	29. Letters

He doesn't see Pepper very often. She's a busy woman, and she has Tony, and a company, and she would have to have a really good reason to come and visit Steve and he gets the impression that Tony probably wouldn't approve of it even if she did, so when he sees her in the mail room he is startled.

"Ms Potts," he says, giving her his best smile. "I didn't think you came down here."

She grins. It's a lovely grin, all perfect white teeth and big blue eyes. He can totally see why Tony thinks the world revolves around her… at least when it's not revolving around himself. He remembers feeling that way when Peggy smiled at him.

"Steve, sometimes I have to post things, just like regular people."

"Oh, I…ah… suppose I just thought you'd have an assistant, for that sort of thing."

"I'm kind of… between assistants at the moment," she says. "Have been since Natasha left, to be honest. They never live up to her competence.. And to be perfectly honest, since Natasha came out as a SHIELD agent I haven't been able to find anyone as good to replace her. I suppose I should look into whoever trained her…" Steve gives her a look. "That expression tells me I may have stepped onto not-nice things and I will simply get my own mail instead."

Steve smiles. "I doubt you'll ever manage to get someone as well trained as Natasha, Ms Potts."

"Please call me Pepper. It'll make me feel less weird. Right now, I feel a bit weird. Captain America is in my mail room."

"I do live in the Tower, Ms Potts."

"Yeah, and that's lovely, and I wish Tony would make you feel more at home. I mean, I can get someone to bring your mail up to you… I can't believe we haven't done that already it's not as if…"

He holds up a hand. He used to be confused that Tony and Pepper were drawn to each other, Pepper has always seemed so… _Pepper_, but they are alike in so many ways, not the least their tendency to talk through problems until all you can think of is the words and not the problem…

"It's all right, Ms Potts," he says. "Someone _does _deliver my mail. I'm here to post letters, not pick them up."

She grins. "And here I thought everyone communicated by email these days."

"I have a few friends who prefer to hold the paper in their hands," he says, holding up the three envelopes he has. Tony was thoughtful, or perhaps, he thinks now, Pepper was, and provided him with nice stationary.

"Captain!" The king of the mail room — Scott his name is — waves at him from his bench and Steve grins and goes to him, handing him the letters. "I was just about to send your box up," he says and Pepper peers around him to see the large crate stuffed with letters with "Cap" written on it in big bold letters.

"I'll take it, Scott," Steve says, and hefts it under one arm. "Keep up the good work."

"You too."

Steve nods and smiles at Pepper and makes his way to the lifts, pressing the button and waiting. A few moments later Pepper comes up next to him and he nods to her and they stand, watching the numbers flash. The silence is comfortable on his side, but he realizes when she turns to him that it isn't on hers.

She turns to him with a deep breath. "So you're settling in, ok? You like the apartment? I know Tony was a bit dubious about the things you asked to be delivered and the rent's a bit high but…"

"It's lovely, Ms Potts," he says. "I feel very at home there."

"That's good. That's really good. And security is all right? Sometimes we get people trying to come in and find you and I know it's a bit of a drag to have to go through the scanners on your way in and out and…" He smiles at her. "I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"Not at all," Steve says. The lift arrives and they both enter, Pepper punching in the code for the penthouse while Steve politely looks the other way.

"You should come up for dinner sometime," she says. Her voice is firm now, and she is staring at the lift doors with a slight grin on her face.

"I should?"

"Definitely."

"Ah… ok?"

"I'll send a note."

"That would be lovely, Ms Potts."

"Call me Pepper."

"Thank you, Pepper."

The lift reaches his floor and he steps out, still holding his box of mail. Pepper grins at him as the doors close and he blinks a few times before going back to his flat.

Tony… he is beginning to understand.

Pepper… well he thinks he's probably going to have to work on it.


	30. Promise

"Steve, it's Tony,"

"Is there an emergency?"

"Not. Not an Avengers one. No. It's not an emergency, I just need you in the conference room. Bring your lawyer."

"Tony I don't have…" but Tony has hung up.

Steve looks at the phone for a moment, then at the shield in its stand near his door. Tony had said it wasn't an Avengers emergency so he supposed it would be safe to leave the shield where it was.

He makes his way to the conference room. When he gets there Tony is standing looking out the window, tension evident in all the lines of his body, and there is a woman, impeccably dressed and beautifully groomed, sitting at the head of the conference table surrounded by papers. She looks up and sees him before Tony turns. "Captain Rogers," she says. "Good of you to come so quickly."

Tony turns around. "We'll have to wait for your lawyer to get here," he says. The words are short and clipped and Steve suppresses a sigh of frustration.

"Tony as I was trying to tell you, I don't have a lawyer."

"You… what?" Tony seems enraged by this. "Fine. I'll get one for you. Vivian, get one of your guys over here…"

Steve holds up his hands. "Have I done something wrong, Tony?"

The cool voice of the woman… Vivian… breaks in. "Of course not, Captain Rogers. It's just customary when matters like this come up for you to have an intermediary. Financial matters can be delicate."

Steve looks at Tony, then folds his arms. "What's going on?" he asks.

Tony's nostrils flare. "Howard left you something. In his will."

Steve frowns. "That doesn't make any sense, Tony. I went into the ice before he died."

"You were always officially listed as 'missing in action', Steve. Apparently my _dad _thought you'd be found eventually and made allowances for that."

Steve looked at the woman. "So what do I need the lawyer for? Are you _disputing…"_

Tony looks like he's going to explode with rage. "Of course I'm fucking not. Howard was allowed to do whatever he wanted with his damned money."

"Why are you angry, Tony?"

Tony glares at him. "I'm not angry."

Steve just looks at him. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Vivian smiling slightly. She's sensible enough to have her head turned away from Tony, however.

Steve takes a deep breath. "Why don't you start from the beginning. If you both still think I need a lawyer at the end I promise I'll get one. Does that sound reasonable?"

Tony waves a hand. This is obviously an indication that Vivian has to deal with things. Steve is relieved.

"Howard Stark set up a fund for you, before he died. Ostensibly it was to fund the search efforts, and a good deal of the money was put towards that, however the investment portfolio turned out to be extremely profitable and by the time you were pulled out of the ice, there was… ah… a good deal of money left."

"I thought SHIELD funded…"

"Apparently not," Tony said. "I'm going to strangle Fury next time I see him."

"Why is it only just coming to light? I've been out of the ice for more than a year…"

Vivian smiled and spread her hands. "Things like this move very slowly, Captain Rogers. Your status had to be changed and there were some legal difficulties with having you listed as… your actual age, considering some people your age don't have power of attorney over their…"

"They thought you'd be senile, Cap," Tony said.

Steve cocks an eyebrow. "Oh." He looks at Tony, then Vivian. "How are they sure I'm not?"

Vivian chuckles. Tony scowls. "Don't ever try to be funny in my presence again," he says, but Steve sees a slight twinkle in his eye and Steve allows himself to relax a little.

"In any case, Captain Rogers, there is a large sum of money which according to the terms of Howard's will, is now yours." Vivian pushes the papers towards him and he spins them to face him, glancing down at the covering letter.

His eyes freeze when he sees the amount.

"We need you to sign some papers and…"

"I can't take this."

Tony's breath explodes. "I _told _you," he says, pointing at Vivian. "You owe me ten bucks."

"Captain Rogers, it's yours by law. Howard wanted you to…"

"What am I going to do with this much money?" Steve says. "Why did Howard… What…" His mind goes blank.

"Steve you can do whatever you want with it," Tony's voice is a little less angry now. "Give it to orphans. Build churches. No one cares."

Vivian is smiling at him again. "Captain Rogers, Howard wanted to be sure you'd be looked after, if they found you."

"He didn't want you to be SHIELD's tool," Tony says. "He wanted you to be able to act on your own. Use the money for that."

Steve looks at the paper in front of him, thinking of Howard, and Tony, for a long moment. Then he looks up at Tony.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Tony stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head, minutely. "Not your fault," he says. "Just. Take it. It's not like I don't have more than you anyway."

Steve starts flipping through the pages, seeing all the parts that he has to sign. "I might need that lawyer now," Steve says.

"I'll call my office," Vivian says, and steps outside to talk on her phone. Tony stays and looks at Steve.

"I know you don't like talking about Howard…"

"I don't."

Steve sighs. "He was a good man, and he was my friend, Tony. And…"

"What?"

"And he's dead. I don't…"

"Don't what?"

"Can you stop interrupting me?"

"You sound just like him sometimes."

"I can't imagine why."

"Just…"

"Shut up Tony. I wanted to say, I don't want you to be him. Any more than he wanted you to be me."

Tony stands there, still, for a long moment, then one hand creeps up and taps at his chest where the arc reactor is. Tony's business shirts tend to be thick enough that the blue glow can't be seen, but Steve's ears are sensitive and he can hear the slight metallic click as his nail meets the hard casing.

"Well. That's good then," Tony says finally. He glances down at the papers. "You should take us all out for dinner," he says. "Your shout this time."

Steve smiles. "I'd be happy to, Tony."


	31. Simple

It seems so simple at the time. A simple request. Steve supposes he's always been a fairly simple person, when it gets down to it. Bucky was always more complex. For Steve being _who he was _was always in the background, he is easy in his identity, even out of time, in another world doing things he never dreamed of doing, he is himself, but with Bucky…

_Remember who you are._

When he says those words, he doesn't think of the implications. He doesn't realize that it will _hurt _to have all those things returned to him, when before there had been only blessed blankness and purpose.

Natasha holds onto his arm, says Bucky would be happier, knowing. She should know. She knows him better than he does.

Natasha knows a part of him that Steve has never seen, not at least until he was in the scope of that rifle, not at least until he felt the metal of that arm punching him in the gut, not at least until he'd seen the focused rage and heard the words torn from the heart of a man he thought he knew…

_You don't know me!_

Steve isn't sure what is right any more. He used to think, when he felt overwhelmed and crowded and unsure, when he first came out of the ice, that it would have been better if he'd died. He used to think there was a definite, absolute line between _what is right _and _what is wrong _and now…

Now things aren't simple any more.

"He's not dead," he says, but the words are more to reassure himself than anyone else.

"Are you sure, Steve?" Sam kneels by the place where the _thing_ was destroyed, the blue power still licking around where Bucky had been, framing a silhouette of a man kneeling. It is fading, but Steve thinks he will always see Bucky kneeling there, hands by the side of his face, mouth twisted in anguish.

"Bucky's a survivor," he says. The words _do _make him feel better. Bucky wouldn't kill himself. He sees Natasha looking at him and swallows. _At this point, he'd get someone else to do it for him._ "But we have to find him."

Natasha, who looks almost as bad as Steve feels, nods. Clint… Clint who Steve thought would have a lot more difficulty with this whole situation than he seems to be having, puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Consider it done, Boss," he says. "We're good at finding people."

Steve hefts the shield in one hand and nods. This place is done. They need to get going. Find Bucky. Save him.

_If only it were that simple._


	32. Future

The future is not what he thought it was going to be.

He sits in an abandoned warehouse. The other Avengers… Sam would say _the real Avengers _have left. He would wonder how it came to this, but it's easy enough to understand. It happened with the mutants. He's read enough history to know that it happens again and again, when something is different, uncontrollable, it will be seen as a threat.

Tony has a point.

It doesn't stop Tony from being _wrong._

He rests his head in his hands.

It was his job, in the war, to think of every eventuality. As much as it had hurt, when Bucky fell, it hadn't been entirely unexpected. It was war. People died.

It wasn't until today that he truly realized that this is war. People have died. More will die.

He feels incredibly weary. The long trip back to his apartment seems like an impossible task to undertake, for all his serum. They look to him for leadership, and care, and he doesn't know if he can do it any more. He has a feeling that he is not going to survive to see the end of this and that almost hurts more than anything, that he could have had a glimpse at normality and felt his place in the world, the Avengers, _his family,_ as secure — and have it all ripped out from under him because he saw the right and _did it._

He's led a charmed life, he realizes now, to have come so far and not been shown that knowing what was right was not always reason enough to _do it_. He should have picked his battles more carefully. He should have…

…but he knows he couldn't have.

He sighs and pulls the sheet of paper towards him, thinking of Bucky and Sam and Peggy and Tasha and all the people he's come to care for since coming out of the ice, knowing that this is a fight he's dragged them into because of what he is, because of _who _he is. He hates himself because he has become the symbol he never wanted to be. As long as he fights, they will think they can win, and because of that, he cannot stop.

_This is not the way it was meant to be._

He picks up his pen.

_Dear Tony…_


End file.
